X-Message-Number: 24581 Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 05:28:34 -0700 From: Edgar Swank <> Subject: Re: Cuba, Venezuela & Leftist nations and Cryonics/Immortalism My reply to Randall S. My comments interspersed. > Mr. Edgar Swank added that Venezuela might be a good > place for cryonics. I also agree there. Venezuela is > also turning leftist under Chavez, who is, despite his > demonization in the American press, a rational and > thoughtful fellow. Chavez is leftist, at least in rhetoric. But I and my friends down there don't consider him very rational or thoughtful. He is a ruthless dictator, but nevertheless, unless you participate in political dissent, in which case you are risking your life, you can easily fly "below the radar" and in practice be freer there than here in the USA. I don't think this is the case at all in Cuba. I am a L(l)ibertarian. So I don't like government intervening in my life. I like the (limited) Bush tax cuts. A Libertarian government would cut them a lot more. But in Venezuela government doesn't affect day to day life much at all. Taxes are very low, because almost everybody doesn't pay them anyway, except for a sales tax collected by merchants. You will never get a speeding ticket. Gasoline is VERY cheap. There is pretty much no welfare system in Venezuela. So everybody has to work. Labor is very cheap. There is no or a very low minimum wage, which isn't much enforced anyway. The government doesn't provide much medical care. Where I was, a private Swiss clinic provided free care to all comers, including me. My white face got me to the head of a long line. Because the government doesn't intervene in the medical marketplace, medical costs, except for imported medicines, which are hard to find and expensive, are much lower. I don't recall what I paid for private medical services in Venezuela, but it was certainly lower than here, and without any insurance needed. I do recall what I paid for a visit to a cardiologist in the Philippines, $8. and $8 more for a lab test. -- Edgar W. Swank <> Home Page:http://members.fortunecity.com/edgarswank Phone: 408-227-3471 Cell: 408-605-4721 FAX: 810-277-7274 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24581